I am honoured to announce my new role as extraordinary Professor of Privacy, Cybersecurity, and IT Contract Law at the European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity (ECPC) within the Maastricht University Faculty of Law.  Becoming a professor represents a defining moment in my professional life. Given the swirling development of technologies in our data-centric society, this new position will give me the opportunity to contribute to identifying the right balance between apparently conflicting interests and to further develop a concept that I have been working on for some time now, Data Protection as a Corporate Social Responsibility.  I strongly believe that companies cannot consider data protection as a mere legal compliance obligation, but instead must consider privacy and data protection as assets that can help them to responsibly further their economic targets.  It is not only possible but necessary that companies reconcile the needs of consumers, doing everything in their power to uphold fundamental rights while at the same time allowing for profits.  As I have said in the past, data is the future and instead of regulating alone, we must push for Data Protection to be considered as a genuine aspect of CSR.